Monday, June 23, 2014

Dr. Christian Schlüchter's discovery of 4,000-year-old chunks of wood at
the leading edge of a Swiss glacier was clearly not cheered by many
members of the global warming doom-and-gloom science orthodoxy.

This finding indicated that the Alps were pretty nearly glacier-free at
that time, disproving accepted theories that they only began retreating
after the end of the little ice age in the mid-19th century. As he
concluded, the region had once been much warmer than today, with "a wild
landscape and wide flowing river."

Dr. Schlüchter's report might have been more conveniently dismissed by
the entrenched global warming establishment were it not for his
distinguished reputation as a giant in the field of geology and
paleoclimatology who has authored/coauthored more than 250 papers and is
a professor emeritus at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

Then he made himself even more unpopular thanks to a recent interview
titled "Our Society is Fundamentally Dishonest" which appeared in the
Swiss publication Der Bund where he criticized the
U.N.-dominated institutional climate science hierarchy for extreme
tunnel vision and political contamination.

Following the ancient forest evidence discovery Schlüchter became a
target of scorn. As he observes in the interview, "I wasn't supposed to
find that chunk of wood because I didn't belong to the close-knit circle
of Holocene and climate researchers. My findings thus caught many
experts off guard: Now an 'amateur' had found something that the [more
recent time-focused] Holocene and climate experts should have found."

Other evidence exists that there is really nothing new about dramatic
glacier advances and retreats. In fact the Alps were nearly glacier-free
again about 2,000 years ago. Schlüchter points out that "the forest
line was much higher than it is today; there were hardly any glaciers.
Nowhere in the detailed travel accounts from Roman times are glaciers
mentioned."

Schlüchter criticizes his critics for focusing on a
time period which is "indeed too short." His studies and analyses of a
Rhone glacier area reveal that "the rock surface had [previously] been
ice-free 5,800 of the last 10,000 years."

Such changes can occur very rapidly. His research team was stunned to
find trunks of huge trees near the edge of Mont Miné Glacier which had
all died in just a single year. They determined that time to be 8,200
years ago based upon oxygen isotopes in the Greenland ice which showed
marked cooling.

Casting serious doubt upon alarmist U.N.-IPCC projections that the Alps
will be nearly glacier-free by 2100, Schlüchter poses several
challenging questions: "Why did the glaciers retreat in the middle of
the 19th century, although the large CO2 increase in the atmosphere came
later? Why did the Earth 'tip' in such a short time into a warming
phase? Why did glaciers again advance in the 1880s, 1920s, and 1980s? . .
. Sooner or later climate science will have to answer the question why
the retreat of the glacier at the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850
was so rapid."

Although we witness ongoing IPCC attempts to blame such developments
upon evil fossil-fueled CO2 emissions, that notion fails to answer these
questions. Instead, Schlüchter believes that the sun is the principal
long-term driver of climate change, with tectonics and volcanoes acting
as significant contributors.

Regarding IPCC integrity with strong suspicion, Schlüchter recounts a
meeting in England that he was "accidentally" invited to which was led
by "someone of the East Anglia Climate Center who had come under fire in
the wake of the Climategate e-mails."

As he describes it: "The leader of the meeting spoke like some kind of
Father. He was seated at a table in front of those gathered and he took
messages. He commented on them either benevolently or dismissively."

Schlüchter's view of the proceeding took a final nosedive towards the
end of the discussion. As he noted: "Lastly it was about tips on
research funding proposals and where to submit them best. For me it was
impressive to see how the leader of the meeting collected and selected
information."

As a number of other prominent climate scientists I know will attest,
there's one broadly recognized universal tip for those seeking
government funding. All proposals with any real prospects for success
should somehow link climate change with human activities rather than to
natural causes. Even better, those human influences should intone
dangerous consequences.

Schlüchter warns that the reputation of science is becoming more and
more damaged as politics and money gain influence. He concludes, "For me
it also gets down to the credibility of science . . . Today
many natural scientists are helping hands of politicians, and are no
longer scientists who occupy themselves with new knowledge and data. And
that worries me."

Healthesound.info

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